Oh Christ.
Those two words best sum up my thoughts going into this review, in both good and bad ways, as they reflect my feelings on pretty much everything: these two episodes, the trajectory of the show going forward, and the general state of the fandom – a fandom that had already started crumbling into toxic little pieces around the time of Jodie Whittaker’s casting, pieces which Russell T. Davies decided to douse in petrol and set on fire on Saturday evening.
It was just too good to last, wasn’t it? A series that people have mostly enjoyed, filled with decent to fantastic episodes, a great Doctor-companion dynamic and some cool ongoing story elements, and then you get to the finale and none of that goodwill that was amassed over the preceding weeks means anything anymore. It was the same thing that happened during Empire of Death, it was the same thing that happened after The Vanquishers, The Timeless Children, Hell Bent, Death In Heaven… I could go on but you get my drift.
This is probably the hardest Doctor Who review I’ve ever had to write in my eight years of talking about the show, as no other finale has left me as shaken, confused and apprehensive as to the future of the programme like The Reality War. And it’s not even a bad thing to feel that way (even though this two-parter has many, many problems), but even in the uncertain and generally lacklustre Chibnall years I at least felt like I knew where the show was going. I have no bloody clue now.
Before Wish World I had considered doing separate reviews of both parts to the finale, as opposed to last year where I covered the two-parter as a whole. However, I soon realised that would be a difficult job because not only is Wish World the first half of a story so contingent on the quality of its second, it’s also surprisingly uneventful for Part One of a finale. It takes the Doctor until the cliffhanger to find out the Rani is back, something we as the viewers already knew at the end of the previous episode, we still don’t find out why May 24th is so important, and it just serves to establish that Conrad from Lucky Day is now the god-like figure in some distorted version of Earth.
The production design here is exquisite, and Wish World does present its unique reality really well. This can be seen as Russell doing his take on Wandavision – all the characters are living in a fake 1950s-esque world controlled by an unknown entity keeping everyone under subservience. However, Wandavision had an entire series to play about with this idea and the barriers between the fantasy and the real world started to come down in really cool ways – Wish World can only have fun with it for 45 minutes since we’ve got to do the eventual cliffhanger where the dastardly plan is revealed, and have the part two where everyone bands together to defeat the monsters. As a result everything has to start coming apart almost immediately and there’s not enough chance for the script and direction to let Wish World become suitably eerie.
All the ideas and interesting social commentary are there – since Conrad is a far-right conspiracy theorist, his Wish World sees everyone boxed into heteronormative relationships, the disabled are outcasts, and other marginalised groups simply don’t exist – Rose Noble only re-enters reality when everything begins reverting to normal in the second part. The Doctor (in his societal role as John Smith) gets disturbing looks after giving his male colleague a compliment, and any doubt is treated with arrest. So it’s Wandavision meets Nineteen Eighty-Four basically. The aesthetic is interesting, the dystopian ideas are sound, but Wish World just ends up feeling like 45 minutes of stepping stones so we can get to The Reality War.
The Reality War is better than last year’s finale if only because it feels more substantial and the emotional payoffs are more satisfying. It still suffers from relatively lacklustre resolutions to the main plot threads of the series (one Rani is eaten, the other simply teleports away), but I was invested in the character arcs that this episode explored and I did really like how last year’s Christmas special Joy To The World factored in to the narrative. I really enjoyed that episode so it’s interesting to see a Christmas episode in the middle of a Doctor’s era (which are normally disposable fluff) actually hold a lot of importance.
I also wasn’t expecting it to feel way more important than the brief return of the original Time Lord, Omega, last seen in the 1980s with an uber-cool costume. By contrast, the visual upgrade of another classic villain winds up making him appear like the supersized prehistoric cousin of the Newborn from Alien: Resurrection. Say what you will about the Newborn, at least it gets a decent amount of screentime. This episode hypes up Omega beyond belief, and he’s on screen for about two minutes and then lamely drawn back into his prison by the vindicator, which just so happens to have the energy of a thousand supernovas. Because of course it does.
Things have never been more split, many people feel either deflated or simply too baffled to know what to think, the precarious nature of the Disney+ deal is leading to increased pessimism, and Russell’s writing (for many) isn’t hitting the spot that it did back in his first era.
The Reality War does deliver on spectacle. The UNIT headquarters are the center-stage of a gigantic battle sequence against these massive boney antimatter creatures, and the Doctor rides a weird flying segway to the Rani’s headquarters. And again, where this mainly succeeds is in the emotional payoffs. I loved the scene when Ruby confronted Conrad, and the scene where the Doctor and Belinda slowly forget Poppy, as represented through the gorgeous visual image of her coat slowly decreasing in size until it disappears altogether.
Poppy was the emotional anchor for everything in this two-parter. The Doctor and Belinda’s daughter in Wish World, Belinda still cares for her even when everything starts unravelling. Poppy is Belinda’s raison d’être in this reality and naturally, everything seems wrong once she stops existing.
I’ve heard many people complain about how this arc undoes Belinda’s character and regresses her, and I personally have mixed feelings. While it is certainly a cheat to have references to her parents and her happy life that don’t amount to much, the cathartic payoff of the Doctor slightly altering reality so that Poppy was always a part of Belinda’s life was a really sweet moment and I loved the little end coda where the Doctor sees Belinda living a happy normal life with her parents coming to visit her and her daughter.
And with this, we come to the unavoidable subject of conversation – the Doctor alters reality at the expense of his own life. We finally got a surprise regeneration.
It’s annoying that a select minority had already found this out in a leak, but the shock and emotion felt when I realised we were already seeing Ncuti’s last moments as the Doctor were overwhelming. As expected, I became a gibbering fanboy wreck – the Thirteenth Doctor showing up was a lovely surprise and is all the proof you need that Jodie Whittaker was always brilliant no matter what material she was given, and I adored the shot of him walking to the TARDIS entrance as all the lights turn off around him. His last line – “This has been an absolute joy” – was also a simple but choice line for him to go out on, a Doctor that I will remember as truly unique, exuberant, and also a true reflection of the actor portraying them. Ncuti imbued his incarnation with so much of his own personality and there are so many moments of his that will live on in my head. It was a short run, but a sweet one – on the surface at least.
Since Saturday night, there have been extensive rumours that reshoots took place in February to change the episode’s ending and film a regeneration since Ncuti, frustrated by the lack of decision on a third series, decided to pursue other projects. He’s certainly going onto greater things but as for the show, your guess is as good as mine.
Russell certainly isn’t done with some of the things he’s been setting up. We’ve still got Susan to deal with, there’s been mentions of a ‘boss,’ and we also have next year’s spinoff The War Between The Land and The Sea. And of course, Ncuti regenerated into Billie Piper because reasons. However, if Russell’s plan was to give the show stability and re-ignite the fandom then he is failing spectacularly so far. Things have never been more split, many people feel either deflated or simply too baffled to know what to think, the precarious nature of the Disney+ deal is leading to increased pessimism, and Russell’s writing (for many) isn’t hitting the spot that it did back in his first era.
This longer break could hopefully be a good thing in the long run. This series had already been written and filmed by the time the last one had started so there wasn’t any time to rectify any long-term plans. Russell now has the perfect chance to alter his visions for the show, give more thought to what he’s doing, and hopefully he can fully deliver on the promise that the RTD2 era had in its early days. But for now, my advice to Russell, and indeed to the entire fandom is this: calm the hell down. Touch grass, go outside, smell the roses, release your inhibitions, feel the rain on your skin. And then maybe, just maybe, we can all enjoy the show again in a peaceful and civilised manner.
Fat chance but, much like Conrad, I can wish.
The Wish World, The Reality War and all of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who can be watched on BBC iPlayer (UK) and Disney Plus (Internationally)
Alex’s Archive – The Wish World & The Reality War
Discover more from The Geek Show
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
